Hollow Crown
by MoonBlue22
Summary: "Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin" Deuteronomy 24:16. Features OC characters, as well as historical figures pertaining to Vlad III Dracul.


**The Hollow Crown**

_Memento_

Preface

**Of Graves**

* * *

**1486**

**Teleorman, Wallachia **

The shroud was slipping from his greasy grip, fabric stirring in the wind like the gauzy wings of some great moth. _Don't rise, _he prayed, his feet sinking further into the gluttonous earth, mud guzzling at his ankles. _Don't you dare rise!_

He drew a deep breath, and the throbbing ache in his ribs squealed, the invisible dagger slicing deeper. _You can't fall, _he told himself. If he fell backwards, he would tumble down the slope, and perhaps a stray rock or a buried root would kick his head as he passed by.

Then it would be all over for him. He would either drown in dirt or be devoured by the wolves, like the men said. Sometimes he fancied he could hear them howling in the night. Flesh was flesh, they said, and starving dogs didn't care what they sated themselves on, everyone was just meat in the end.

_Then why not leave her for the wolves?_ Why make him struggle uphill with her weight dragging him down and pushing him back? Why not dig a hole and dump her in it? Or burn her on some secret pyre?

Once such thoughts would have made his insides reel and bile burn in his throat. The boy that had left Buda would never have dared to think such thoughts; they would have been treasonous fluttering's, suffocated in the night by a prayer or some wine.

_I am not a boy anymore. No matter what they might call me. _Boy or _you, _they never called them by their names now. Maybe it made it easier for them. He was almost twelve now, nearly a man grown. The thought of burning corpses no longer haunted his nightmares. Dead was dead. They were all just meat in the end. It wasn't the meat you were afraid of, just the beasts it had belonged too.

_Though they're pissing themselves now. You were supposed to be alive, not a carcass. They're more afraid of your meat than they were of you. _Meat was meat. He had to stop thinking like that. There was nothing left now; just another pile of meat to feed the fish with. It was gone now. _She _was gone now, just like the rest of them.

When the rain continued to persist, icy droplets smacking his face in stubborn waves, he gave up and sagged against a gnarled old tree, legs falling from under him. He didn't care what they said or did. It was high enough here and he could hear the river below, churning over grey rocks and lumps of forest scum.

How to go about doing it? Should he roll her off the edge? Or throw her in? His arms were aching and his muscles screamed at the thought of more lifting, of more tugging, and shoving.

_You were pig-headed alive, and you're only worse now you're dead, _he wanted to tell her.

She might have found it funny, and tossed back her head and laughed. She'd had a sweet laugh, it had bubbled in her throat before it came roaring out of her mouth, and she'd used to giggle too. The boy at Buda had watched her often at feasts, sequestered in a corner with the other girl, the pretty one, _Al-_ no!…no she was gone too now. Just meat.

They would never laugh again now. That made the boy rather sad. _But you'll see that other girl now. And __**him**__. You'd like that wouldn't you?_

The lump slumped at his feet said nothing. The sheet was sticking to pale skin, he could see the ridge of a nose and the rise of a chest. There was a depression where her eyes were, and when the wind nudged the shroud, the sickly insipid shape of a hand was revealed, a dark brown stain caked her fingers and had congealed under her nails like burnt treacle.

The boy at Buda had watched those fingers play with harp-strings and parchment; they had raked through his hair and pinched his cheeks, lovingly adorned with rubies and diamonds. He wanted to touch them now, to peel away the brown stickiness and smooth away the vicious pink marks.

_No! Just meat. Just meat. _He tugged the sheet back over, though he could feel something faint twitching underneath. _Dead. _They had told him, when they had shoved her body into his arms. _**Dead**__. _He had understood then and nodded, because though the night was dark, he could still count the moonstones glittering on their scabbards.

In the end he did carry her over to the precipice, and laid her out on the edge, the shroud tucked neatly around her, no blemish or skin on display. The river beneath was invisible, hidden in the dark, like a snake in long grass, but the smell of damp earth and rot seemed to breath and live in the moist film of mist, and the echo of rain battering water was louder than thunder.

Should he pray for her? _Pray her head hits a rock? _No. Prayer had done nothing for her in life. _Yet you still kept going didn't you? _Oh how she had prattled with her beads, lips tracing the Latin syllables. _Didn't do you much good did it?_

No angels had come to steal her away in the night. No prophets to deliver her from the infidels, no God to smite down her enemies. Yet still, he could see the onyx beads rattling in her fingers and see her eyes staring into the flames while her lips kept moving, murmuring and muttering. _You've still got your beads now; they'll still let you keep your Jesu. Isn't that kind?_

He'd never thought much of her eyes, though everyone else had delighted in them. They were large, and brown, the sort of darkish hue that seemed to toy with the idea of being black. _**His **__eyes_, people had whispered, which had always seemed rather morbid to him, ascribing the eyes of a dead man to a living girl.

The boy at Buda had never met the Impaler-Prince though; her eyes, had always been her own. He didn't want them looking at him now. He wanted to think of them as being closed, as though she were already sleeping.

"You'll be with them soon," he told her, offering her what little comfort he could.

Then he gave her a good, hard shove, and watched her fall into the abyss. He waited a while, until he heard a heavy sound, like a bag of flour being thrown into a pond. _Just sink, _he thought, picturing her form bobbing to the surface, like a slab of driftwood. _It's over for you now. _Death was mercy. She deserved some of that.

_You're just another dead girl, Princess. _

* * *

**Just another random plot bunny chewing up the empty scenery in my strange little mind.**

**Obviously this story is completely fictional so the actual historical elements reflect this. In the preface, the year is 1486, about a decade after the death of Prince Vlad Tepes, so in the cannon of Hellsing, Alucard's been a vampire for about ten years. The actual Vlad Tepes was married three times and did have children, two sons. Only one of his wives is actually named in any of the sources I've read. Ilona Szilágyi, who was a cousin of the King of Hungary.**

**I don't know if she was the mother of both Vlad's sons, but for the benefit of this story, she was his third wife and the mother of his youngest son. This story will deal a lot with the history and fates of Vlad - Dracula - Alucard's - children, which if you know anything about them, was kind of unfortunate...**


End file.
